Whether you love him or hate him, Elon Musk is a major figure in the automotive industry.

Tesla has done more than any other company to push forward the adoption of fully electric vehicles, and it seems that it (along with Musk) want to do the same thing with fully autonomous (self-driving) technologies.

In recent years, one of the major selling points for Tesla vehicles with many customers has been the ‘Autopilot’ feature, which is what they call the full self-driving software that is used.

While officially, they want drivers to remain alert and paying attention to what is going on so that a human can take control at any moment, that doesn’t happen like it should.

This is, at least in part, due to the fact that Tesla’s marketing has made most people think that when using Autopilot, the car can take care of everything. In most cases, this works out just fine.

While the tech certainly has its flaws, it has been able to successfully drive millions of miles safely.

The problem with this type of technology, however, is that when it fails, it can result in serious injuries or even deaths.

For this reason, many industry expert and executives at other automotive companies are criticizing Tesla, and Musk himself, for pushing out self-driving features to quickly.

Jochen Haab, the head of autonomous driving at Mercedes-Benz, recently did an interview with Drive where he discussed this situation.

“We’re concerned about others, let’s say, promising too much. That’s not the way we approach things. The problem is — if things are overpromised or do underperform, even if it’s very seldom, the entire trust in autonomous driving itself loses confidence.”

While most people agree that self-driving vehicles are going to be the standard at some point in the future, crashes and other issues (many involving Tesla cars) are making people from the general public worry that the tech is not yet ready for the road.

A survey from AAA found that 68% of people are concerned about self-driving cars. This is a bump up of 13% from a year prior.

Virtually every automaker is working on autonomous driving technologies, but it is being done in a much more cautious way to help ensure that all the bugs are worked out before the general public gets behind the wheel.

Some have suggested that Tesla, on the other hand, is using the public as guinea pigs for the tech.

Haab commented on how Mercedes is going through their testing:

“We deal with the risk and then we take the step. We do field validation, we act as if we’re the customers.” He went on to explain that it is Mercedes employees and “skilled engineers or testing drivers.” who perform the testing.

This may in part be why Mercedes became the first company to be able to sell ‘Level 3’ self-driving cars in the United States.

Level 3 autonomous driving systems are where the vehicle makes decisions on many aspects of driving, and the driver can take their eyes off the road for short periods of time.

Despite what most people think, Tesla is still a Level 2 self-driving technology.

Given the fact that so many people are concerned with the overall safety of any type of self-driving vehicle, it is important that all car companies, especially Tesla, get it right.

The future of autonomous driving may be at risk.

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